


A room with a thousand lights

by Obliviouspugs



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Canon Death, Other, Trauma, everyone but Bobby is only mentioned, projecting? no way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29525127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obliviouspugs/pseuds/Obliviouspugs
Summary: Bobby had it the best of all of the sunset curve guys when it came to parents. but nothing was ever perfect. it feels wrong to complain when it could be a lot worse. so when things become worse can he complain now?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	A room with a thousand lights

**Author's Note:**

> taking some tumblr psychology and putting it into a fic.  
> but seriously wishing for a cause for your sadness is something you should speak to a professional about. just cause others have it worse doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to feel sad.  
> also i completely gloss over the stealing songs, it totally still happened but he had a good reason, i just forgot to write it because it didn't flow nicely. feel free to imagine whatever head-canon you like for stealing songs and apologising to the guys about it.

Bobby didn’t mind his parents.

Sure they fight sometimes and his dad was away for work a lot but it could be worse. Luke always argued with his, Alex’s hated him and Reggie’s barley even knew he existed (on a good day). Bobby didn’t always get along with his family but at least he still had one. When things weren’t so bad the boys bonded over their home lives. Him and Alex would discuss if all the money was worth it if your parents aren’t around but take one look at Reggie and remember if they could save enough pocket money they could keep him fed and suddenly their dads jobs were worth it. 

As the years went on Bobby’s problems started to seem insignificant. Why should he complain that his dad missed Christmas when Alex’s parents won’t even speak to him? Surely he’s the lucky one. But at the end of the day all pain is relative and he still misses his dad.

When the guys need to get away from it all they hide in the garage but Bobby can’t run away to the garage it’s in his back garden his parents would find him and then they’d have to talk out whatever was bothering them. Some times he envys Luke for running away then he remembers that no one leaves their parents if they can help it. For a long time Bobby wanted a reason to feel sad. They were all messed up, it probably helped them become friends to start with, but everyone else sadness seem justified, he’d be sad too if he was in any of the other guys’ shoes. 

Maybe he prayed too hard. 

When the guys died Bobby felt a lot and nothing, so many emotions he was numb. His mom tried to help but what do you say to a kid that’s just lot three of their brothers. Rose tries but she doesn’t know him, not really. One day he’s not sure when, Bobby realises he got what he wanted, a reason to suffer, and that makes him feel worse, guilty almost, like he caused this. And years later his therapist will explain it all but at the end of the day, he wanted to feel like he was sad for a reason, and he has a bloody good reason to be sad now. Everyday it feels like he is shouldering the suffering all four of them carried. He misses the days when his dad working late was his biggest problem and then he’ll feel even worse cause he’ll remember how upset it made him at the time and he’ll get annoyed at his past self. How could he have been sad, this was real sadness, but the truth is when the only pain he’d know was missing his dad- it was the worse pain.

His therapist used an analogy one time: if you are in a dark room a turn on one light it feels so bright and powerful but if you have ten lights on and you turn on an 11th do you even notice it? It's still just as bright but it doesn’t have the same effect. For a long time he was that dark room, a low baseline for pain, his dad missing Christmas was the light super bright and noticeable. Alex already had ten lights on - all his parents shity behaviour- when his dad had to miss family events it was still one more light but Alex would barley even resigner it. When the boys died he entered a room with not just 10 lights but 100. When bad things happened he didn’t even notice a new light being turned on anymore, what difference did it make? He spent many years blinded by that pain making a number of mistakes but not noticing the extra lights he was turning on.  
But therapy helped, and Rose, and music and slowly while he could never go back do the dark room of ignorance he could dim this lights, turn off pain he could move on from and turn down those that would always stick with him. And when this lights weren’t so bright and his eyes didn’t hurt so much he could see with better clarity everything that had happened in his life the good and the bad.

With time (lots of it) Bobby learnt that he didn’t deserve his suffering, at any point, that it was valid and his pain was real - even if he had the best parents of the four and even if it has been 25 years. He missed his dad then and he misses his band now.

**Author's Note:**

> hope that was okay. i am defiantly not a writer and have horrible spelling so will probably edit this as i spot mistakes.  
> the light analogy is a metaphor i've heard used but i can't remember who by. it wasn't an intentional comparison to the boys dark room, i remembered hearing it and it ended up becoming a bigger part of the fic then i planned.


End file.
